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egg rules!

Last edited by Bokuto Koutarou 2 minutes ago

It takes a while to settle on the rules. When Ushijima admits that he doesn't prefer hard-boiled eggs, and that he just buys them in the little pre-peeled two-packs from 7-Eleven if he needs them, both the chat and the Google Doc become entirely unusable under the force of Atsumu's complete bewilderment at the concept. By the time Hinata's decided to try to explain what a boarding school is, for some reason, Sakusa realizes he has no choice but to step in.

When the day comes, they gather in the MSBY dorms' communal space. The contents of the whiteboard Hoshiumi has conjured out of somewhere seem pretty straightforward.

• Each competitor has their own pot of eggs.
• All eggs are to be boiled in the exact same stainless steel pot, on the same size of element at the same heat setting.
• The pot will contain exactly ten eggs, two litres of water, and one teaspoon of salt. No vinegar or other additives.
• The eggs will be boiled with the same method: to ensure egg consistency, they will be added first, then cold water. Then, from cold directly on the element, no adjustments when the water boils, ten minutes.
• The eggs will be put in an ice bath of the same size with the same amount of ice (two cups) and tap water (one litre) afterward, for ten minutes.
• All eggs will be refrigerated overnight.

"Okay," Hinata says. "But we only have two elements the same size, so some batches of eggs will be ten minutes more chilled than the others, or twenty. Or more if we use an existing pot and don't buy two identical ones."

"I... don't think that matters," Atsumu says. "Not when it's overnight." There's a tone of pleading to his voice; they've been going over this for so long that Sakusa's sure even Atsumu's competitive spirit has been dampened. But something about being a twin probably means he needs to make sure he isn't getting a raw deal, so here he is, picking over the details with the rest of them.

Sakusa puts him out of his misery eventually. "It's an insignificant difference, but we can trade half the eggs from the earlier batches with those from the later batches after the fridge if needed. We can write on the shells with a marker."

"Will the marker convey an advantage?" That's Ushijima this time, and Sakusa has to remind himself that he likes the man and how precise and fastidious he is, and also that he's glad to have a relatively inexperienced competitor. He's started seeing Ushijima as almost a trial group for this challenge.

"No," Hinata says, almost too kindly.

Hoshiumi crosses out the entire first point. "If the world record is 6, I don't think we need ten eggs each. Why don't we just boil them in one really big pot in a couple of batches, then mix them up before dividing them?"

A round of nods. Sakusa decides he likes Hoshiumi.

"And," Hoshiumi says, crossing out the other points that his suggestion makes unnecessary, "just to make it more interesting, we add one raw egg."

Never mind.

"Wait, who boils the eggs?" Bokuto asks. He's been a little glazed over this whole time, swiping furiously at his newest phone game.

"Ushijima," Sakusa says immediately. "He's precise and he's never done it before. It'll be as fair as it can get."

"Sakusa-san," Hinata says, starry-eyed. "You're a genius."

That settled, they find themselves wedged into the nearest supermarket, clustered around the eggs. It's a smallish city supermarket, with a single shelf of eggs, so seven large (even Hinata and Hoshiumi, really, are average height and well above average in muscle mass) men clustered around a shelf bickering about the eggs they should choose goes beyond "mortifying" and into "actively disrupting business". It falls to Sakusa, again, to diffuse it.

"These ones," he says, shouldering his way in to point at the brand with the most cartons.

"Why?"

"Which of the others has at least fifty-six in the same size with the same expiry date?" He's bluffing, but six faces swivel to face him with varying levels of awe.

The bluff pays off. The cartons are selected, and finally, finally, Sakusa's out of the public eye and any risk of a front-page Rival V. League teams get arrested for property damage after supermarket food fight headline. The next bit's up to Ushijima, who agrees to let a very insistent Atsumu in to supervise (and for fairness between the teams, Atsumu says, not like this is a team challenge), but shuts the kitchen door behind the rest of them.

That's fine by Sakusa. They're pretty much the only two he trusts with restaurant-grade hygiene, and having someone he knows can cook in there is a relief.

When they emerge, precisely twenty-five minutes later, Ushijima's face is as straight as ever. Less typically, Atsumu is just as solemn. "The ritual is complete," he declares. "Now we wait until the morn."

It's Sokolov, amiable and visibly amused, who they convince to adjudicate the entire affair. He's efficient about it, too, doling out eggs into brightly-colored melamine bowls he'd found in the depths of the MSBY kitchen. (Sakusa checks with both Atsumu and Hinata, and neither has seen them before. What the hell.) Before long, they're all seated around one of the dining tables, Sokolov at its head holding a stopwatch with an expression on his face which manages both serenity and poorly-concealed glee.

Sakusa surveys the competition from his vantage point at the foot of the table. Hinata, to his left, is vibrating in that invisible, microscopic way he does before matches; Bokuto, to his left, is vibrating in a much more visible way that rattles the table for a moment before Atsumu, sitting closest to Sokolov, stills him with a palm on his thigh. On his right, Kageyama, who had predictably insisted on being directly opposite Hinata, then Hoshiumi, baiting Bokuto with some kind of impossible expression, and Ushijima, hands folded in his lap.

Just like any other match, then. Sakusa tunes out all of them in his periphery, focusing on stretching his wrists and thumbs. He also ignores the hollering once the louder few notice what he's doing and race to do their own stretches, until Sokolov has to save a bowl of eggs from Bokuto's enthusiastic shoulder rolls.

"You better all be ready," Sokolov says. The mirth has disappeared from his face. "On a count of five..."

Before him, a bowl of eggs. On the other side of the metaphorical net, triumph. Around him, a growing crowd of confused teammates, no doubt wondering what the hell their juniors are up to again. Sakusa gets ready to serve.

The whistle blows. There's no eight-second count, here: Sakusa picks up an egg, neatly whacking its base against the table, then rolling to send the crack spiderwebbing up one side. He follows the shattered shell up with his thumb, neatly shucking off the halves membrane and all once he's done. The egg goes in his mouth, though he hardly notices how it tastes since he's started on his second egg by the time he swallows.

The minute is a blur. He can hear the increasing clamour of the crowd; beside him, he distantly hears Hinata going "oh, ew," then doing something which makes everyone else echo him. His world's narrowed to this: the meaty side of his right thumb, thumbnail to first knuckle. The shell of each egg. The yolky taste of victory.

He's not sure how many eggs he's eaten, when the whistle blows; he has a mostly-peeled egg in his hands, but the shell-halves are scattered and not immediately countable. Meian, in the doorway, looks a little green. The room is quiet.

"Well," Sokolov says. Everyone leans in a little to hear him. "I don't know who won, but I took a video so we can count from there."

Bokuto groans, pushing his bowl away so he can rest his forehead on the table.

You have turned captions on. Auto-generated: Japanese.

Hi! I'm Hoshiumi, you might know me, yeah, there's my face right there. Sokolov, what the hell, how did you even take this video without us noticing. This is more or less a Hoshiumi Reacts To video, so let's go!

Okay, so, we're about to start. Oh, wait, the whistle was Tomas? Okay. Okay. There's me, you're about to see my amazing egg technique. It was slower than I expected, so I don't think I win, but — there it is, look at that, I've made a hole in the top and the bottom of the egg and I'm blowing really fucking hard. God that looks ridiculous. And the egg pops right out, and that's cool and all, and look at the — oh man, the look on my face there. I think I'd just realized that I needed to eat the egg too, and having to swap what my mouth's doing isn't efficient, and... yeah, peeling normally now.

Sakusa's already through two eggs in that time, starting on his third, look at those adorable hamster cheeks, and Kageyama too — go Adlers look at him, he's a machine — and... Ushijima's working on his first one still. Oh man. It's about eating them, you don't have to make sure the whole egg is totally shell-free, unless you care about that kind of thing.

Oh my god? Oh my god— okay, Hinata gets the raw egg I sneaked in, but he doesn't make a mess, unlike Bokuto who's out of the running with smashed egg bits everywhere he's gotta find and eat, he just brings the egg up to his mouth and cracks it in and swallows. That's faster than eating a hard-boiled one, now I think about it. Atsumu's working at a steady pace, except — ah, he's choking, it's only taken him a couple of seconds to clear and wave off Barnes trying to help, but that's enough, it's just Sakusa and Kageyama head to head now.

Man I wish we had a closeup like cooking shows do. Or our games. Sakusa doesn't look like he's doing anything freaky with his hands but surely eggs don't peel that consistently. I know for a fact there was a time Kageyama ate eight eggs a day, so my money was on him, but look at that, five, six, seven— and the whistle blows, and SAKUSA'S BROKEN A WORLD RECORD? HEY GUYS DO YOU THINK GUINNESS WILL ACCEPT THIS VIDEO AS EVI— oh they need one of their judge people there? We'll have to do it again, then! Yeah!

EGG COMPETITION: 7 MEMBERS

Sakusa Kiyoomi has left the chat.